


Her Heart in Tears

by PuppiesRainbowsSadism



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Trans!Sam, cw transphobia, ftm!sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppiesRainbowsSadism/pseuds/PuppiesRainbowsSadism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's making a scrapbook for his support group that details his transition from beginning to end. He asks Benny for a  little help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Heart in Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for an anon that wanted Sam reflecting on everything that had gone wrong with his transition and the people who were in his life through it. And how everything seems right now, as he's "_____ to either Castiel, Benny, or Jess."
> 
> Title from Helen Leigh's "The Natural Child," which doesn't actually have anything to do, really, with a story like this.

                “Hey, Benny?” Sam called as Benny passed the room he was working in. “We don’t have any more picture boxes do we?” He had already gone through the four they owned – two absconded with from Sam’s childhood home, one taken from his father’s storage, and one with pictures he had hunted down from various family friends and relatives. All together, they didn’t even fill two whole photo albums (it was a close thing, but still), and Sam wasn’t sure he had everything he needed from their meagre collection.

                For the most part, Benny had stayed out of Sam’s little project. The first time he had wrapped his arms around Sam’s shoulders and asked what he was doing got him nothing but a very distracted “I’m busy” and the time after that was “This is something I need to do on my own, okay?” So he had left Sam to it, but now that Sam was asking for help, he was more than happy to lend a hand.

                “I think Ma left a couple in the attic, if you want me ta look.”

                Sam shook his head, flipping through the albums with an air of resignation that said he’d already scoured the pictures he had. “I need pictures of us with our friends. And I’ve already looked through Jess’s Facebook, but there aren’t any good ones.”

                “We’re not exactly a photogenic bunch,” Benny agreed. “Wha’d’ya need these for, anyway?”

                Sam hesitated, but eventually scooted over where he sat cross-legged on the floor. Benny plopped down next to him, nudging him encouragingly with his shoulder. Sam smiled at the gesture but otherwise didn’t acknowledge it, pushing a small scrapbook with a piece of masking tape marking it as _untitled_ across a small row of boxes towards him.

                “It’s a project I’m working on for support group,” Sam explained quietly, self-consciously tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear. “I wasn’t gonna show you until it was finished, but … I think I might need your help.”

                “What is it?” Benny asked. He held the scrapbook like it was something precious, unwilling to open it lest he tread on something private.

                “It’s my story. My – my transition story, specifically, but there’s other stuff too. I just … Would you mind going through it? I need a fresh set of eyes on this.”

                Of course, Benny suspected what Sam really wanted was to share this story with him. In all the time they’d known each other, Sam had never really shared any details about his transition. That was always a tightly locked secret, and Benny respected that. It wasn’t his business anyway, not really, even if it did incite his curiosity every now and again.

                “You sure you want me to see this?” he asked, just to be sure.

                “Yeah,” Sam answered, forcing nonchalance as he dug around for a notebook and pen. “I need constructive criticism, or something.”

                Benny grinned cheekily and pointed to the masking tape on the cover. “Needs a title.”

                Sam rolled his eyes affectionately, and Benny opened the scrapbook without having to be prompted.

                The first page’s only decoration was a letter from Ronald Regan congratulating the Winchesters for the new addition to their family and a picture from right after Sam was born. It was undoubtedly taken from a card or something, because it was an image of the happy family grouped together with a caption in pink that said _It’s A Girl!_ Benny was surprised to see it, considering Sam hated talking about that period of his life – when he was misgendered at every turn and was dizzy with dysphoria. At the very least, Benny thought Sam might cross out the caption and replace it with something else, but it was as it was, complete with a pink cardstock background.

                He turned the page.

                Spread across the length of the book were pictures of Sam from his childhood, starting with Mary’s funeral (labelled “November 2, 1983” and featuring a picture of Sam as a baby wearing a lacy black dress and trying to climb into his mother’s coffin) and ending with his senior year of high school (an image of Sam wearing the traditional black drape). Benny didn’t linger long on these pages either.

                Next was a collage of pictures of Sam and Dean playing together. Their happiness was infectious, and Benny found himself smiling as well. The only caption was “July 4, 1995.”

                “What’s this?” Benny asked, indicating the date written there.

                Sam looked over Benny’s arm to see where he was pointing. “That’s the day I came out to Dean,” he replied.

                “You remember the exact day?”

                Sam nodded, just the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Yeah. That was a really good day. He took it fairly well, started calling me his little brother and everything. It took him a while to really get it, though.”

                “Wha’d’you mean?”

                The heartbeat of hesitation was the most tense silence Benny had every experienced between himself and Sam. Thankfully, it didn’t last more than a second before Sam sighed wearily and turned to the next page in the book. On the left were two pictures. One was of Sam and Dean with their father, stiff and unsmiling, all holding a gun of some sort. The other was almost too dark to make out – a house in the middle of nowhere at night, only one light on and no one in sight. The caption read “ _August 12, 2001_

                But it was the right side that shocked Benny into silence. It was filled with hurtful phrases written in all caps with red marker. Things ranging from “ _What the hell did you do to your hair?_ ” to “ _Why can’t you be into boys and makeup like normal girls?_ ”

                “Dean said all these things?” Benny whispered in disbelief as he read through them all, lingering with a cringe at “ _Samantha Alexandra Winchester!_ ” He knew Dean could be kind of brash sometimes, but he never imagined he could say such hateful things to the brother he loved and protected so fiercely.

                “No,” Sam answered easily, obviously trying to detach himself from the emotion embedded here. “Dad said all these things. Dean said _that_ one.”

                Benny followed Sam’s finger to the bottom of the page, the only phrase written on pink spiky paper so it stood out:  “ _Why can’t you just be a girl again?_ ”

                “He said that?”

                Sam nodded. “The full quote is something along the lines of, ‘You and Dad got along so much better when you were Samantha. Why can’t you just be a girl again? Let everything go back to normal?”

                Benny still had trouble believing it. Then again, Dean had come a long way from whom he used to be – hell, they all had – and it wasn’t too difficult to imagine him as an ignorant son of a bitch.

                “Why are you showing me this, _cher_?” Benny asked softly. When he looked up to meet Sam’s eyes, he was hiding behind a curtain of hair, a tell-tale sign that Sam was nervous or uncomfortable. Benny reached up to push the hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear and letting his hand rest reassuringly on the back of Sam’s neck. Sam leaned into the touch but still refused to meet his eyes.

                “We’ve known each other a long time,” he started slowly, picking and choosing his words carefully. “We’ve … we’ve been together a long time, and you don’t know any of this. I’ve never told you.”

                “And you don’t have to. Tha’s your business.”

                “But it’s _important_. Benny, it’s part of who I am. I’ve lived half of my life as Samantha, and you don’t know anything about it.”

                “Okay, no,” Benny objected immediately, wrapping his arms around Sam protectively. Sam sputtered in surprise but rested his head against Benny’s shoulder instinctively. “I don’ care about Samantha. As far as I’m concerned, she don’t exist. All that matters to me is you – is _Sam._ All the rest is ancient history.”

                “But – “

                “I know it’s still a part of you, okay? I’m not sayin’ that it ain’t. But that was then, this is now, and you don’ need to tell me all about your past. It’s irrelevant to the present. Does that make sense?”

                That coaxed a small smile out of Sam, and he kissed the bit of Benny’s throat that he could reach. “Yeah. That makes sense.” He sat up slowly, allowing Benny’s arms to slip from around his shoulders, but staying close enough to lean in for a kiss. “I still want you to look through the scrapbook, though. Make sure it’s presentable.”

                “Is it all as negative as the last few pages?” Benny asked tentatively.

                “No,” Sam laughed. “I promise.”

                Benny decided to trust him. They flipped through the rest of the book jovially, asking questions and telling stories and laughing about some of the pictures. There were pages dedicated to Sam’s years at Stanford and his roommate Jess, who supported him when he needed it most; a page for when he and Dean made up; a page for Cas, Sam’s first love and the one who convinced Sam to start transitioning in the first place. If nothing else, Benny was glad that Sam had Cas in his life, back then and even now. They were great friends, and although Cas was himself cisgender, he seemed to understand Sam more than anyone. They connected on a level that almost rivalled Sam’s connection to his brother, and Benny was grateful that Sam had that.

                The last few pages were full of pictures of Sam’s transition, from the very day he started T to his last surgery and every moment in between, including the card that Dean had presented as a congratulations:  A stork carrying a blue blanket that said “ _It’s a boy!_ ” and contained one of Sam’s baby pictures. Benny remembered when Dean gave this to Sam, how they held each other and cried, although they both denied it later. How they almost got kicked out of the hospital because Dean had bought celebratory _It’s a boy_ King Edward cigars. They still had the box somewhere, full but for the three they smoked together.

                Benny smiled fondly and moved to close the book, but Sam stopped him. “There’s one more page. I think you’ll want to see it.”

                Benny raised an eyebrow in question, but Sam just gestured to the scrapbook expectantly. With a faux weary sigh, he turned the page, struck still and silent immediately.

                It was a page full of _them_. Both of them. On their first date, in a photobooth, their anniversary last month …

                In the bottom corner was a little piece of cardstock containing something written in immaculate cursive:  “ _Of course, I am so very thankful for my boyfriend Benny. He’s been nothing but supportive and loving, and if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be the man I am today.”_

                “Nah, _chere_ ,” Benny said softly, not trusting his voice with anything much louder than a whisper. “The man you are today – that’s all you.”


End file.
